This Side of Paradise

I have spent the first week of the project reading This Side of Paradise, the debut novel of F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was published in 1920 and it is remarkable to think of such a young man (he was born on 24 September 1896) writing such an impressive and successful novel.

Fitzgerald effectively dropped out of university in November 1917 to take up a commission as a second lieutenant in the infantry. He never got to serve in Europe but mentions in this largely autobiographical novel two men who did see active service and never returned: Kerry Holiday, who left university to enlist as a pilot in the Lafayette Escadrille in France, and Jesse Ferrenby. No doubt several of Fitzgerald’s friends were killed in the war. Some might well have become great writers!

The first mention of the war in this novel places the beginning of the conflict in the summer following the freshman year of the central character, Amory Blaine. It "failed to thrill or interest him", though "he hoped it would be long and bloody".






Later in the war, Amory was envious and admiring of his friend Kerry Holiday's decision to leave college and sail for France to join the international contingent of the French air force. He tells one of his mentors, Monsignor Thayer Darcy, that Kerry wanted him to join him in the adventure.Darcy advises him: "You wouldn't like to go... Well, you'd have to be very much more tired of life than I think you are." Amory admits "It just seemed an easy way out of everything — when I think of another useless, draggy year."

In the interlude chapter between Book One and Book Two, a letter from Darcy to Amory of January 1918 reflects on the impact the war is having on young men like Amory, who is stationed with the 171st Infantry at a port of embarkation. "This is the end of one thing: for better or worse you will never again be quite the Amory Blaine that I knew... your generation is growing hard, much harder than mine ever grew..." Perhaps this was the legacy of the war for young Americans: a hard resistance. In the concluding chapter, Amory argues passionately for the panacea of Socialism with a man who turns out to be the bereaved father of his friend, Jesse Ferrenby. "I'm restless. My whole generation is restless.... I'm in love with change."